A time capsule of the greatest financial mania in the history of mankind, told in real-time by regular folks and patriots. May future generations better understand the madness of crowds, and how power and money corrupt.

August 30, 2007

That's it folks. Put a fork in it. The housing bubble is dead, and even TCDL (sure miss the little guy eh?) now admits he was spewing lies.HP note to TCDL: Your lies and spin ruined lives. You are a shameful, corrupt little man who knowingly enriched himself at the expense of America. History will not be kind to you or to your replacement stooge Lawrence Yun.

Perhaps the most prominent housing booster was David Lereah, the chief economist at the National Association of Realtors until April. In 2005, he published a book titled, “Are You Missing the Real Estate Boom?” In 2006, it was updated and rereleased as “Why the Real Estate Boom Will Not Bust.” This year, Mr. Lereah published a new book, “All Real Estate Is Local.”In an interview, Mr. Lereah, now an executive at Move Inc., which operates a real estate Web site, acknowledged he had gotten it wrong, saying he did not fully realize how loose lending standards had become and how quickly they would tighten up again this summer. But he argued that many of his critics have also been proved wrong, because they were bearish as early as 2002.

“The bears were bears way too early, and the bulls were bulls too late,” he said. “You need to know when you are straying from fundamentals. It’s hard, when you are in the middle of the storm, to know.”

"The bears were bears way too early, and the bulls were bulls too late."

Uhhhh, no. The bears were bears as soon as fundamentals got out of whack, which is when this whole housing frenzy should have ended. The bears warned the world about this problem. Had people listened to the bears, they wouldn't have had to be bears any more, or at least as long. But now the bulls are horns deep in sh!t.

Yes indeed. I sold in 2004, and not entirely driven by market timing issues. Any reasonable person should have been able to conclude boomers would be downsizing early.

My exodus was created as much by a desire to no longer own a "country estate" (and live much more simply) and conveniently than anything. I strongly suspected that the mania would continue. However, with fluffed appraisals, pencil whipped loan applications and 6% commissions I decided I'd had enough and rent for the immediate future.

For DL to say "the bears were bears too early" is like saying "I left a crack party too early"! Well... how can you leave THAT soon enough!?

The executives at Freddie Mac may still be cheerful about the future of the firm but investors on Thursday, after reading over the latest financial results posted by the company, decided now was the time to sell the shares.

The semi-governmentally sponsored buyer and guarantor of home mortgages told traders on Thursday morning that its second-quarter profit tumbled 45.4% as it booked a $320 million provision for credit losses.

What an 'ignoranus'! God, I love that word. Yes, I know it's not really a word.

This guy is a phd economist, former chief economist of the National Association of Realtors and he claims that it was impossible to know there was a bubble?

I don't have a phd and I knew. I didn't have to know how lax the subprime lending standards were. All I had to do was look at the fundamentals: median home price v. median income and median home price v. average rent. That's all you need to know.

I didn't know how this bubble was formed and I didn't have to. But I knew it was a bubble. And that makes me a hell of a lot smarter than that disingenuous, simpering ignoranus.

Awww...thought I was going to get a "hat tip" for that one, but I guess Keith spotted it. How many people bought a house during the bubble based on NAR press releases? My guess is there is only a short time while people are paying close attention to the RE news - when they are buying - which makes spin and obfuscation that much easier.

Anyone who has been through national cycles before realizes that there are two primary dynamics at work, a broader national trend with an inverse relationship between home buyer affordability and interest rates and second local supply and demand which is effected by things such as job creation, housing supply and housing prices. Basic fact is going back 30+ years is the national trends tend to take longer to change directions. The local ones can change on a dime.

Even in the very 'stable' midwest area of Saint Louis MO where we typically experience 3-4% appreciation, we're seeing the effect of the mortgage meltdown. The number of qualified buyers has shrunk and the market is awash with sellers who still think its the heyday of 2004-2005 when Saint Louis MO experienced rapid appreciation. The sellers who are getting realistic are able to sell - unfortunately some are bringing large checks to the table if they purchased at the peak of 2005.

The other local dynamic is the appetite and demand for the ultimate predatory weapon of the non-fiduciary loan officer! In Saint Louis MO we saw very little if any buy in (fortunately) for pay option arms. There was more demand for ARMs in Saint Louis MO - we're seeing some uptick in sellers coming to us with ARMs ready to re-set and can't afford the looming payments.

But what Lerach and other national prognosticators (or even the press) fail to understand is the fact that the strongest variable is the local one - REAL ESTATE is a local market driven economy. We see this throughout Saint Louis MO where we have some markets which are strong and listings sell the first week - we had one at 3 X the average price for the market that had 63 people through it the first day and sold for 100% of list with multiple back up offers. Others in less strong areas of Saint Louis MO are just sitting (especially if sellers are stuck in the good old days of 2005) with the seller firmly entrenched as the 'highest bidder' for their homes.

Yes, Lerach and the NAR PR machine don't get it - what do you expect - they're a national organization for real estate agents - many of which are so detached from their markets (they sell less than 10 homes per year) that they aren't able to make a strong market opinion or analysis for clients anyway. The only thing their constituents understand is the broader national trends.

Real estate is a cycle, local or national, the terms cycle means that it will in turn change directions again.